No Doubt!

"I keep feeling like there's someone else in the car with us!" I remarked as I got back into the car with Howard, daughter Julie and her husband, Steve. We had been traveling since early that morning on our way back to Oklahoma from Tennessee.

"I have the same feeling!" Julie exclaimed.  "I've had it all day!"  Then Howard said he had sensed it too, but he just hadn't said anything. What was it? This feeling of familiarity, of sensing a closeness of a presence?

It came to me that it must be the Holy Spirit! In Matthew 28:20, Jesus said, "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."  When could we need Him more than while speeding along for 1,000 miles over mountains, curvy roads and through sometimes-heavy traffic?

Jesus assures us in Matthew 14:16, "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever." How comforting to think that was the Holy Spirit guiding and protecting us. The trip was flawless all the way home and all the way back for our dear "chauffeurs".

We had been gone so long, (a month) visiting daughters' families that we had to get a prescription refilled as soon as we got home.  After picking it and a few other items up, we were waiting in a checkout line when I noticed a baby in the cart ahead of us.  He was looking intently toward me, saying, "Na-na, na-na," and pointing.  I smiled at him, thinking maybe I reminded him of his grandmother. He wouldn't stop saying, "Na-na,"  seemingly trying hard to make himself understood.  Soon his parents wheeled him away, and I stepped up to the cashier, only to realize he'd been pointing at a bunch of bananas I'd put on the counter. He wanted a banana!

Thinking about that later, I reflected on our youth.  Many of them say grownups don't understand them.  And we don't, sometimes, as they seem to speak their own language, wear faddish clothes, and sometimes do foolish things.  Yet in their own way, they may be desperately trying to tell us something. Like the baby who wanted the banana, they are hungry: for knowledge, experience, self-confidence, acceptance and on and on. 

Thankfully we can point them to Jesus and the Holy Spirit who will guide and comfort them through the perils and challenges they face, and the achievements they gain.  Their ride will be so much smoother if He is in the car with them!